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Detainees kept in police custody in Equatorial Guinea are victims of systematic torture, and prisoners suffer inhuman conditions, an independent United Nations human rights expert said in a press statement today, blaming a break down in the country's judicial system.

The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, reported that torture is used by police forces against detainees - political prisoners as well as suspects of common crimes - to extract confessions or information and sometimes as punishment, intimidation or to extort money.

The police abuse reported to him and corroborated by expert medical analysis included beatings to the soles of feet and buttocks with batons, solid rubberized cables and wooden bars; electric shocks with starter cables attached to different parts of the body with alligator clips; various forms of suspension with hands and feet tied together for prolonged periods and beating victims while they swing back-and-forth.

"I am concerned about possible reprisals against detainees who provided testimony to us, in particular at the Central Police Stations in Malabo and Bata